Day 1804

When I was driving to the gym today I listened to a TED Talk about a guy who had taken a vow of silence for seventeen years. He was explaining how he wanted to see if he could go an entire day without talking. The day then became a week, and the week became a year. Every year on his birthday he decided to keeping going one more year. The talk was mostly about how staying silent all those years had fundamentally changed his outlook on life. Yup. I imagine this would change a few things.

TED Talks are like this a lot. Somebody starts doing something simple and relatively innocuous and just keeps going until it turns into an amazing revelation. I wonder what I would talk about if I were ever asked to get up on the TED stage?  I've become an excellent observer over the years, but my observations haven't really gelled into anything significant. Maybe I just need to keep looking.

Another thing I need to do is go to the dentist. I know I've been saying this for months now, but things have reached a tipping point of sorts. I think an old crown has gone bad. The suspect tooth has become very sensitive to cold and I've noticed that I've started chewing on one side of my mouth to avoid the pain. I bet I need a root canal on that tooth. My whole mouth is a house of cards. I'm sure as soon as I get into a dentist's office they're going to want to pull all my wisdom teeth. I've been avoiding this for years, but the wisdom teeth slowly keep pushing my other teeth out of place. I really need to put aside my fear of dentists and make an appointment tomorrow.

After I made a special point of buying new winter gloves and some special cold weather leggings a few weeks ago, the temperature has gotten warm again. The frigid polar vortex temperatures only lasted a day or two and now its back in the 70's again. I wore shorts and a t-shirt when I walked the dogs this afternoon. This is actually pretty typical Texas weather. You never know what to expect. There's a fierce wind outside now that threatens to blow apart my repairs to the greenhouse. We'll see what further surprises tomorrow brings.

It's hard to show restraint at this time of year. The grocery stores are filled with an abundance of absolutely scrumptious looking food and all the other stores are overflowing with all manner of intriguing but largely unnecessary gadgets. I almost came home with a pecan pie, a big wedge of imported cheesed, and a red Pebble smart watch today. Luckily I am finally getting a bit better at showing restraint. All I actually bought were some vegetables and a box of Swiffer dust pads.

It's going to be a short week. I doubt that I'll be able to get a dental appointment, or even a haircut before Thanksgiving. We do have our Thanksgiving dinner reservations though. It's all a matter of priorities

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day